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CANADIAN SYMPATHIES 

IN THE 

AMERICAN REBELLION, 

AND CANADIAN CHOICE 

IN THE 

AMERICAN ELECTION. 



AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNION CLUB AT OLD CAMBRIDGE, 

NOV. 4, 1864, 
By E. C. TERRILL, of STANSTEAD, C. E. 

(Printed by request.) 



Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : — 

Before commencing my little speech, allow me to compliment 
myself upon being associated this evening with Mr. Everett, who has 
not only now shown himself possessed of innate eloquence, but who 
is known as the worthy son of a most worthy sire; the son of a man 
recognized the world over as a monument of talent, wisdom and 
integrity ; a sapient scholar, and a solid statesman ; one of America's 
chiefest patriots. 

In 1859 I passed through Boston on my way to Georgia, and 
wrote thus to a Canadian Gazette, little thinking I should ever ad- 
dress a Boston assembly : — 

"I cheerfully allow that the environs of Boston are the terres- 
trial paradises of America. They are collections of noble mansions, 
English cottages, and Chinese gardens let down by fairy hands into 
a charming grove, and they peep out of their pretty hiding places 
like so many white rabbits from clover burrows. Brookline is 
nestled in a basket of fruits, and Cambridge rests in the arms of her 
scholar laureates with a dignity worthy her prolific honors." 

It is probable that my youth and inattention to the politics of 
either the United States or Canada, will prevent my speaking learn- 
edly to you ; but my constant and fervent desire that Canada, my 
native land, and the United States, her mighty neighbor, should live 



on terms of good fellowship and sisterly love, and both be happy and 
great, will make me speak feelingly if not learnedly. 

Though moved by a love of home, and home institutions, I am 
yet cosmopolitan to the very centre of impartiality ; for I am both 
Canadian and American by descent and residence ; have dwelt 
among the rouge and hleue of Canada, the pro-slavery and anti-sla- 
very of the States. 

To kuow Lower Canada, is to know the more unfavorable of the 
four Provinces, if we except the city influence. She is divided, as to 
her American sympathies, into the Eastern Township Party, the 
French Country Party, and the City Cliques. The first is for you, 
the second against you, the third divided. The Townships are very 
largely populated by American descendants and foreigners allied with 
them by marriage. Though not generally annexationists, their sym- 
pathies are largely with you, and almost without exception with the 
negro ; while the principles advanced by some, fugitive New Hamp- 
shire men, startle and shock them by disloyalty to northern and hu- 
manitarian principles. Annexation may be some time brought about ; 
but it will be worthless to you, unless it emanates spontaneously fi-om 
Canada. 

The minorities are some influential families of British lineage, and 
the laboring classes. The former have an erroneous notion of 
their responsibility to preserve British sentiment and exclude nat- 
ural convictions of the propriety of good fellowship with you. You 
sometimes regret the loss of that kind of men whom you stigmatize 
skedaddlers or scatterers, but they do not surpass in nuaaber, and are 
not to be compared in manliness to the laboring class you have drawn 
from us, while the corruption, their lawlessness, immorality and 
noisome politics produces is really deplorable. 

The French country aflFects you but little, for it is inland and 
quite uncommercial. It has no press to contaminate public senti- 
ment, no supplies to withhold from you. They simply chat that 
Louis Napoleon likes Beauregard. Beauregard's early Adam put on 
his moccasins on the banks of the St. Lawrence, and Louisiana was 
once French. Our cities are Quebec and Montreal, but aside from 
shipping, the latter is the only city in fact. Halifax supplanted 
Quebec, or she would have fitted out blockade runners. She has a 
detrimental influence upon members of Parliament, but they have a 
greater and a beneficial one upon her (on American affairs). Her 
Chronicle like the Toronto Leader, is blatant and satirical upon North- 



//^ 



ern politics, and for tliat reason neither of them can be Government 
organs. Montreal is known by her press, her trade, and her hotels 
(a city's physiognomy). Her Witness is your ardent lover, the Herald 
your warm friend, the Gazette your severe critic, and the Adver- 
tiser your mercenary villitier. Yet the Gazette and Herald were 
both inconsistent in this, that while the Gazette supported the mil- 
itia bill at home, and the Herald not, the Gazette cried for peace 
in America, and the Herald war. A large foreign trade and a home 
production of the necessaries of life, have exceeded the influence of 
her trade with you. Heretofore, French jealousy of British suprem- 
acy, and our trade with you since the treaty, has given you a favor- 
itism in Montreal as it will after the war, but until then. Foreign trade, 
the presence of Southerners and British troops in Canada, will more 
or less affect her. 

A nation is like a man, but with more phases of character, more 
salient points, slower of movement. America has a large farm 
and a good farm house. England with less land has built an elegant 
mansion. Canada, a foster child of England, is breaking up new 
land, but he occasionally brushes up his coat, and tries to keep his 
hands clean, for he is sometimes invited to the mansion of England 
and hopes for better days. Now, America was a middle-aged man 
in the pride of his strength, and could do many things that Canada 
couldn't, and could do better than Canada nearly all that Canada 
could ; but Canada, though a young man, had a young man's con- 
ceit. If England didn't make tea to suit America, or the two men 
couldn't go to the same church, it didn't concern Canada, nor is it 
worth while to twit him of living on his father. It is not undignified 
to receive from a relative when one is needy, and you must remember 
that Canada's farm is smaller and harder to till than yours. 

America has learned during this struggle, what all nations learn 
in times of adversity, that she is not exactly appreciated by her fel- 
lows, that she is underrated by some, and overrated by others, and 
both these results sometimes arise from selfishness. The criticism is 
not expressed, nor is the probable one thought of, while each is pros- 
perous ; for the nation, like a man, is strong in the pride of prosperity. 
But America will never war with England or Canada for a criticism 
founded in reason, nor if the criticism be founded in good faith, but 
upon bad premises, nor if upon mere motives of rivalry. Malice alone 
can give a plausible excuse, and even that should be patent in overt 
acts to be reprehended in war, allowing that war is ever right. When 



you accuse us of criminal ignorance in your aflfairs, judge yourselves 
upon the same basis. "What one of you in the Crimean war, took his 
cue from personal reading of British journals ? Of two nations, it is 
natural that the younger should know more of the internal polity of 
the older ; how much less familliar must Englishmen be with the 
politics of your journals. You love your government for its own 
sake, and other nations like theirs for the same, and next to your own 
you like governments akin to yours. Now when Britain wars with a 
nation as unlike your own as itself, the first supposition is that you 
would side with Britain ; but the leaven of rivalry has usually pro- 
duced a contrary result ; still less would you sympathise with her if 
she warred with some European republic. You would find as she 
now does, motives of rivalry and selfishness predominating. In the 
India rebellion you were not so anxious to have England extinguish 
heathenism and caste, and its consequent vassalage, as to have the 
colony freed from English tyranny and to have another land open to 
Republican institutions ; and especially when England said in her 
acts, as you have in your war, that she fought not to abolish such, 
but for that upon which their abolition was consequent, the sustain- 
ing a branch of her national life. In the Russian war you were not 
constantly thinking of the indirect eflfect a victory would have on 
serfdom ; so Britain overlooks your great question of slavery when 
you say you war for Union. She canuot fully sympathize with you 
while her government difi"ers from yours. It is not enough that both 
like to preserve nationality; the name is the same, the essence is dif- 
ferent. You will pardon my remarks, when I say that I find more to 
like in yours ; but I find one fault greater than all of hers. I enjoy 
pomegranites, another man limes, both eat, but the diversity is the 
kind of eating. Britain failed in sympathy in proportion as she saw 
that the government you would make would be less like her own 
than the Southern under her influence, slavery excepted. But though 
you have not always produced abroad that which is one of the har- 
bingers of sympathy, admiration, you have waked in every intelligent 
mind in foreigndom, inimical or otherwise, the mammoth of wonder- 
ment and amaze at your national wealth, your national strength, 
your national hope, your national love. Had you risen as one man, 
and crushed the rebellion in a day, we should never have known the 
continuity of your purpose, and it might have been called ephemeral 
and fickle impulse. You have a million of muscle and mind in and 
about the war, — you have temporarily parted with half your life, — you 



/ss 



have spent two billions of money. By a close calculation, I estimate 
that that amount of money would fill brimming with silver dollars a 
building containing one million cubic feet, or a hundred feet in every 
direction. Think of it ! it would fill Boston with ivory palaces. But 
Red Hand, the robber, said your money or your life, and you gave 
your money, and you did well. Does any say they are not dollars, 
and will not be paid % I believe the Union will pay its debt, as 
surely as I will pay my laundry bill. Why ? The same pride that 
makes her fight, will make her pay. Does any doubt the patriotism 
of Americans ? as a rule no man who has it not, will fight or lend 
the government. Why ] Only the soldier who has patriotism be- 
lieves that the capitalist who has patriotism will loan the money 
which is to pay the soldier. And the patriotic capitalist will alone 
believe the government patriotic enough to return. We expect or 
hope to see in others a lasting portrayal chiefly of the true traits we 
ourselves possess. I say you will pay, for you are preserving the Union 
for its virtues, and to repudiate were a vice ; you are preserving the 
Union for its international, as well as home good, and repudiation 
were debasing abroad. Patriotic creditors may combine and give 
up their claims or commute them, but there must be no direct or in- 
direct compulsion. 

Though the Times, Tribune, and our own papers, create more than 
a balance of sympathy with us, some get their cue from the Herald 
and World, believing them, from their size and circulation, grand 
organs and mouth-pieces. Some still believe with Bacon, that a na- 
tion needs a king as a swarm of bees its head, but that head is a female, 
and may be President as well as a Queen ; a further analogy would 
as much show that it needed drones. A King has been talked of 
for Canada, but none harbored the idea save those who thought their 
talents or lordly persons fitted them for office or ornament. You may 
feel kindly towards us that in the bitterest part of your war when 
your bile toward foreigners was most apparent, such men as Gait, the 
back-bone of one ministry, and George Brown, the guide of another, 
swayed matters in. Canada. The opposition that curtailed Brown's 
influence have never gained their end, an active militia. Gait in the 
present ministry, was once annexationist, and if he took that ground 
from a conviction of the true interests of Canada, he will not fail to 
push his views when the proper time comes. We are now making a 
confederation of provinces, call it if you please, a union of States. The 
only questionable feature is the life appointment of the upper House 



6 

or Senate by the Queen. This is probably to gain Britain's consent 
to the union, hoping for a change hereafter, when that body shall be 
more vital than heretofore. 

The now trite Trent affair might have brought grave difficulties. 
Which prevented, fear or favor 1 Chiefly favor ; though there were 
Englishmen who ranted for War, as Hale ranted when an English 
man-of-war searched an American merchantman a few years since on 
the better ground suspicion of being a slaver. There are a few 
among us, as w^ell as in America, who charge all the vices consequent 
to a new country and to slavery to the system of a republic. I never 
could determine whether they were unwise or malicious. There are 
a few who seem to see in the large estate, the aristocracy, the dress, 
style and hospitality of the Southron, more of the Englishman than 
in the culture, business, commerce, religion and general enterprise of 
the North. I rather pity such men for their ignorance than hate them 
for their malevolence. No man can judge of republicanism in Amer- 
ica, till the turbulent river of immigration shall have gathered in a 
vast lake of quiet and cultivation. No man can judge of a corn-meal 
pudding, if he tastes the crude grains while boiling ; they are then 
only in federation, not union. Those who are ultra become still 
more so, by means of the local ill of substitute brokerage and kidnap- 
ping. You know very little here of that pest of the borders. Our sim- 
ple-minded peasants sign contracts to labor in the border states which 
prove enlistments. The pimp and his witness prove any understand- 
ing, and the family of the dupe are soon in want and grief. Think of 
a man forced to lay down his life for a cause he does uot understand, 
while all that he ever learned to love are in misery. There are those 
who having no American politics, from mercenary motives, hate the 
war and avert. themselves from its abettors because of its embargo on 
our trade. The great misunderstanding has arisen from the presence 
of Southerners in Canada, who have there experienced perfect hospi- 
tality. Canadian ignorance of slavery in detail, and petulance be- 
cause of American boast, no doubt contributed to it ; but as pride 
and selfishness are too indirect sources of hospitality, I am glad such 
influences are at work. Had Canada driven the Southerners from 
her soil she would be a reproach to herself, and hereafter ignoble in 
your sight even. Her real feeling was shown but yesterday in her 
condign arrest and action in regard to the Vermont raiders, and the 
London T/me* of Canada, Montreal Gazette, writes : — " It is the duty 
of the government and people of Canada to see that the right of asy- 



lum its soil aflfords be kept inviolate, and its breach furnished with 
the sternest severity. To surprise a peaceful town and shoot and 
rob is not civilized war, but war of savages." Philip would brand 
them the ungrateful guests as he did the Macedonian soldiers. I 
am glad the raid happened, for the action of our Governor and people 
will put us on a true footing with you again. 

Canadians tired of hearing you vaunt the Constitution, just as 
you tire at hearing them vaunt the Magna Charta and British Con- 
stitution, as if either were immaculate. We believed once with John 
Quincy Adams, " that the Constitution sanctioned dishonorable 
compromise with slavery, for which there was no remedy but re-or- 
ganization, that the bargain between freedom and slavery was mor- 
ally and politically vicious, inconsistent with the principles on which 
alone the revolution could be justified," and we could not be blind 
to the fact that slavery was satanic or divine before the Constitution 
of 1787. 

Pardon me if I remark upon your Constitution, and show why 
our sympathies make us specially desirous of an amendment upon 
the slavery clauses. As for the sovereignty of states, it does not ex- 
ist, and its warmest votary must take the alternative, that it is either 
folly to suppose so, or they were fools who made the compact. I 
defy contradiction when I say, that any alien dwelling on the words 
perpetual of 1781, " We, i\\e people of the United States," and " A 
more perfect Union," of 1787, and for data referring to Hamilton 
and Madison's Rhode Island Report, and the Federalist on the State 
Protection clause, will decide beyond a doubt that the State cannot 
at all conflict with the Union. If quibbling be resorted to by the 
State, how much more could the Union assume than the State in 
that clause which guarantees from the Union, a republican form of 
government to each State. Now for slavery ; an impartial man read- 
ing those words, " created equal," " consent of governed," and " lib- 
erty," in the declaration, and " to establish justice," and "secure 
blessings of liberty," in the Constitution, and the address of 1783, 
" that it has ever been the pride and boast of America, that the 
rights for which she contended were the rights of human nature," 
would say that did slavery not then exist, it could not subsequently 
come into existence. It did exist, and nothing farther can be urged 
than this, that it was only allowed to continue then, and not prohib- 
ited from 1808, because it was thought it would die before, or if it 
proved progressive, Congress would abolish it or kill it by taxation 



from that date. Do you think those men were omniscient 1 they had 
something else to think of; slavery troubled them as little then as the 
Indian question, and less than the Mormon does you now. Their 
main idea was a grand national existence as yours now, and to get 
Georgia and South Carolina, they compromised, as I fear some sup- 
porters of the administration would to gain more democrats, or the 
North to gain more border states. Take care ! To get Georgia and 
Carolina they threw out that which would have been an eternal or- 
nament to the declaration ; that protest against King George's exe- 
crable commerce, Slave market, war against human nature, and via- 
lation of Negro liberty. Those two States carried the 1808 and fu- 
gitive clauses. Baldwin said Georgia would go out of the Union. — 
Pinckney would consider a refusal the exclusion of South Carolina, 
and so these two domineered over eleven. Why 1 New-England, ex- 
cept the then noble New Hampshire, had the states rights mania, which 
by a freak of time she has since dropped, having no use for, and the 
South has taken up, having a motive. 

It is a serious inquiry for you, whether your impression that sla- 
very has its mortal stab, arises from facts or your hopes ; with the 
germ left, greed and ease will be powerful against mere morality. — 
You have either to call it null by divine law, which the South will 
not allow, or amend the Constitution, and that done there is no issue 
left, only a grudge. As for tariffs they have sanctioned more severe 
ones than the Morrill, and profited by them. 

I repeat, we must be on good terms with you ; we are three thou- 
sand miles from England and not an inch from you. No lofty moun- 
tain range or impassable gulf separates us. Our resources, clime, 
means of education, condition and pursuits of our people are more 
American than English. English protection and monetary assist- 
ance is peculiar, and against political economy. You were both kind 
to us at the outbreak of the revolution, but it was selfish kindness. — 
England wanted us for a freeport and rendezvous in war, a means to 
rebuke a more rebellious colony. You wanted our support to resist, 
and so you voted that Canada alone of the remaining provinces, 
should be admitted without re-consideration ; we had a slave or two 
then, and might have voted with the South. We can never submit 
to be a battle ground again for other nations. We gain as much by 
the treaty as you do ; we import our flour and manufactures from the 
states, and you buy our horses and cattle. Friendly relations pur- 
sued with both for the next quarter century, we shall find our com- 



9 . /^'/ 

mercial interests cliiefly with you. Balance of power in America is 
not necessary to England's safety, while the moral tone, educational 
progress and consanguinity of the Xorth exist. Though your with- 
draw\^l of protection from border ruffians in 1S37, shows that you do 
not seek us by force, your friendship is better than your enmity, and 
in as great a measure as the latter ijs to be dreaded, so is the former 
to be desired. Every Canadian should sympathize with you who be- 
lieves in the right to put down rebellion, either as a civil or humane 
right ; who would support a better government than can follow from 
the South's victory ; who is friendly to the States and to his own 
country. There is no doubt about Canadian sympathy on the 
slavery question any more than on the commercial, since the treaty, 
so far as the intelligent Anglo and Americo-Canadians are concerned. 
Deep down in the fountains of their hearts, underneath the froth of 
prejudice, they feel these wellings of principle, respect for humanity, 
intuition of liberty, demand for right. We are minded that one part 
of America is a country sanded with gold and embowered with roses, 
fanned and perfumed by the bay and magnolia ; endeared by the 
song of the many-tongued Orpheus ; graced by myriad gay-plumed 
birds, and smiled upon by an almost celestial clime, and we want the 
privilege of visiting it without leaving our hearts at home, or belying 
them on the way. We feel that to know and to hate slavery, carries 
one a vast way on the path of virtue, while an indifference toward it, 
were a great weight in sinking one to perdition. To battle slavery 
is the acme of philanthropic glory ; a Howard soothing sick bodies in 
a pest house ; a Winslow opening the windows of Heaven on the dark 
soul of Africa; a Garabaldi revealing and destroying the horde of 
Neapolitan villainies; all say, Give tlie white robe of merit to anti- 
slavery Great-Heart. Demosthenes forcing his Philiipics, or Pitt 
thundering his Georgics, are only precedents of the same spirit in a 
lower order. Truly as Sumner says, " All arts, all sciences, all 
economies, all refinements, all charities and all delights of life, are at 
issue in this cause." AVe hear, as you do, " The wails, the moans 
of slaves redouble to the hills and they to Heaven." On my return 
from Georgia in 18G0, while the South were yet on the threshold of 
the Capitol preparatory to their departure, I lectured in Montreal, 
and made these statements. You can judge of their propriety: — " Anti- 
slavery makes me shun New-England sophists who support Southern 
villany for a doubtful praise, and still more doubtful conscience; and 
make me hate the knave Vallaudigham, who perjured his soul to 



10 

Victor Hugo, terming the mulatto a natural hybrid, and the negro 
an ignorant and cruel brute. Shall I hate him less now ? They make 
me despise those political misers who enjoy liberty among the green 
hills of the North, and deny it to the negro in the sultry South ; who 
found their dixit on a Southern lie, and not only encourage the South 
but cause mutiny and inaction in the North, expecting in the tempo- 
ral and final judgment of villany that the Northern unit will be 
overlooked in the Southern multitude." Shall I despise them less 
now ? " We see that the North cannot be free from the responsibility of 
slavery by secession. They will not free the slaves unless it is right, 
nor secede to free them, unless that be the only way ; but there is no 
secession, only revolution is possible. In the Union or out, they must 
fight slavery." Thank God, you are doing it in the Union, and suc- 
cessfully. Jefferson was right, when he said — " In the presence of 
slavery I tremble for the South when I remember that God is just; 
for in a war with slavery the Almighty has no attribute that will 
side with slave-owners." Here is another statement made at that 
time — 1860. " If the South change its creed it will be from slavery, 
a necessary evil, to slavery a divine blessing; they will not be cramp- 
ed or yield their theory without fighting, and anti-slavery will 
fight rather than cease agitation." Again : " It is rumored, that the 
opposition of the North, and the family trouble in the Southern elec- 
toral college make disunion inevitable. If the North think disunion 
will remove tlieir responsibility, the sooner they fight the better. — 
Let the North start right, the majority of the world will join and 
God will give the issue. The North did not start right, though it is 
nearly so now ; less Lincoln's fault than the nation's. They floated 
between freedom and slavery, as DeTocqueville says the voyager on 
the Ohio does. Those who fight under the banner of philanthropy 
should fight for the poor as well as the rich, the ignorant as well as 
the intelligent, soul as well as complexion ; so that if the black, de- 
based on earth be exalted in Heaven, and some white man exalted 
on earth, be debased in the hereafter, the black soul made white, 
shall have some cause to cool his parched tongue." 

And now for our choice in your election. Remember we have no 
party interest or emolument of office to gain by the issue, and we 
regard your candidates simply upon their personal fitness. If there 
be any prejudice it is against the Democrats, for they, in the history 
of your politics, have most often threatened England and shown a 



11 

disposition to swallow Canada whole as they did Texas, without but- 
tering its edges, and to conciliate the South by merging family fends 
in foreign quarrel, just as two robbers quarrelling over the division 
of a spoil drop their strife, and pounce on some innocent passer-by 
for better gain. When McClellan was put in charge of the Ameri- 
can army, we wished him free will and action, and the opportunity 
of a thorough trial, for we felt that praise was due him for his 
training of the army ; but we regarded him more as a very supe- 
rior drill-sergeant than a splendid general, and thought, with the 
London Times, that a regular army would afford many his equals. — 
But we distinguish between military skill and political diplomacy, 
and we say with a distinguished orator of the day, '• There is only 
one candidate in the field," that one, Lincoln. When he was elected 
we very much doubted his fitness for the place. Now, under the 
circumstances attending the position, we think him the fittest man. 
We cannot put such strictures upon his conduct as Mr. Phillips does, 
or if we could, would not make them so unfortunately ill-timed, yet 
we are as strong abolitionists. We have said, liberate the blacks 
compensating them in money, not the masters. We believe to-day, 
that Mr. Lincoln, looking at the slavery question by itself, and in its 
immediate practical sense, is as true an abolitionist as Phillips or 
Garrison, and his future acts will prove him so. He was faulty with 
Fremont and Hunter, and perhaps wanted grand pivot measures, 
pro or con, to emanate from himself. Though Fremont's proclama- 
tion and Hunter's edict were not absolutely military necessities, they 
were military advantages, which, considering their ulterior, social and 
moral benefits, might have been sustained and made of presidential 
authority. Though we never thought Fremont more fit for the Pres- 
idency than McClellan, you lost immense foreign sympathy abroad 
by supplanting him. Execution stamps Fremont; caution, McClel- 
lan ; plan, neither. Lincoln did at first, what Carlyle says great 
minds always do ; he fluttered uncertain over the great impulse, and 
by degrees seized the one idea by which he drives the world. I 
think the phrase military necessity was an excuse to avoid censure, 
as he passed from mental doubt to the clear light of right. It is 
enough excuse for him to say, that few Americans of party politics 
would have done so well. The only seeming reason for Phillips's 
censure, is the rights of the black in the re-organization of states ; 
but we look upon that as only incipient, provisional and remedi- 
able. 



12 

Mr. Lincoln's election is more certain than the result of any con- 
tested presidential election has been since Washington's. But his 
majority will not be so great, We can hardly call JefFerson's or 
Munroe's second election contested. The chief benefit in his con- 
stituents working now^ is to increase his favor, and thus indi- 
rectly fill his hands with implements to carry out his will after 
election ; and the benefit of talking is to have him know how the peo- 
ple would have him move, what would grieve and what would please. 
Two months since his re-election was even doubtful. How mighty a 
help have the late victories been, not only in putting down rebellion 
abroad, but dissension at home ! I can conceive circumstances that 
would have kept the South united and vigorous, the Democratic par- 
ty strong, the weather-cocks ali against you, the peace party immense, 
foreign influence adverse, and the election hot and close, and conspir- 
acies worse than Cataline's, riots, corruptions and blood-shed rife. We 
do not fear that Abraham Lincoln will worship the letter of the Con- 
stitution too much, nor compromise g)od and evil. " Compromise, in 
politics," says Burke, " is ai)t to be false candor in treaty with crime' 
and is like the bat, that disagreeable compromise between bird and 
beast, that flits on the eye at dufdc, the disagreeable compromise twixt 
day and night." There are American politicians wliosesole query isj 
" Can Lincoln conciliate the South any way." The true question, 
and the one we foreigners harp upon is. Will he settle the negro ques- 
tion satisfactorily for the whole world 1 Mr. Winthrop says the South 
were anxious for his first election. Then let them profit by his sec- 
ond. I repeat, the canker slavery aside, they have no future issue 
or quarrel with him ; he can then arrange terms with them as well as 
Greeley and Clay. If he, as President of the United States, had 
abused his position toward the South, then another arbiter were ne- 
cessary ; but foreign nations complain alone of his debiy in using the 
true weapon, emancipation, not of his severity. 

His addresses to the Southern people, where they have not been 
too lenient, have been simply consonant with his position, and con- 
ciliatory in the extreme. He says, " Beyond constitutionally defend- 
ing the Union, there will be no invasion, no force; we are not ene- 
mies, but friends." If any other person could conciliate the South 
easier, he must concede more, and therefore be unfit for tlie position. 
In contrasting JAv. Lincoln and Mr. McClellan, and their respective 
supporters, I shall strive to use suitable and decorous terms, for I 
dislike the term Coppcrliaad as I do the term Fanatic, and I have 



13 ^ 

felt keenly for some of my (lemocratic friends who support McClel- 
lan, who have been called therefore traitors, when I have known them 
to be pure in intention, if faulty in fact. 

We gather from the Committee on the War enough to condemn 
McClellan as a general. How easily shall we conclude then, that he 
is unfit for a President, when we remember that his whole training has 
been military. Ilis is no versatile talent, no brilliant genius, that will 
make him walk straight in a new path, when he has erred in an old 
and beaten one. Studious, reticent, cautious and with fair common 
sense, when he fails to guide his own war steed, will he pilot safely 
another's ship of state ? When he opposed the President's wish to form 
army corps, it was as much as to say, I can wield the whole better 
than another general can a part. No one could blame him if he had 
succeeded; but when he assumed a responsibility that hardly a Na- 
poleon would have thought wise to do, and that against the desire of 
his President, he laid himself o;;en to the charge of being obstinate, 
conceited, or timid, either of which former objections could only be 
allayed by the example of great ability, and not only ability notable 
in one of his youth, but equal to the post he filled. But the lenient 
President, though supported by military authority, is not imperative, 
but writes, that he is unwilling that the commanding general be 
trammelled. His sole excuse for not sweeping the Potomac, was 
that it might precipitate a general action. That was the very thing 
desired ; would he not risk a small engagement, with most certain 
beneficial results, lest a large one ensue, as it must have sooner or later, 
with the chances in his favor. True, his army was the pride of. the 
North, but as he had made it a solid, upon him devolved risky bat- 
tles as well as sure ones. He wanted to increase his army till it 
should preponderate immensely over the Southern, and swallow it 
up in one battle. But rebellions must be stopped quicker than other 
wai's, and while the South was yet doubtful, and the extinction of 
the rebellion determined upon in the North, Lincoln grew tired of the 
six months quiet, and said, " Take a bee-line for Manassas." Another 
military suggestion from a civilian, says McClellan to himself; and 
returns, " Your plan is not well. I will sail about and surprise." Then 
came that quincunx of queries from Lincoln, that showed he thought 
ere he ordered ; but no reasons are given in answer, and no action 
was taken. Potomac still blockaded, Washington unprotected, and 
Manassas deserted. Now a man is responsible according to his posi- 
tion ; but concede that ]\[cClellan be responsible only for faults his 



14 

prescience might provide against, how much more is he responsible 
for those he is cautioned against. Note Lincoln's wisdom in the 
Yorktown matter, — " Don't seek a field, take the one in hand, else you 
shift without surmounting the difficulty." Later, McClellan writes, 
" I trust I shall obtain the perfect confidence of my government, or 
my career may close." Now this is noble, but he spoils it by com- 
plaining that no more men are sent him, when he knows the other 
generals have been stripped to build him. 

As there is no excuse for the disaster of a splendid army, we can- 
not agree in this with him : " I will do all I can with the splendid army 
I command, but if the result is a disaster, it is not my fault." The 
fact is, the opposing force was magnified to him, and he was not in 
full courage. Later, it is testified, our advance for conquest was turn- 
ed into a retreat for safety, by a force probably not greatly superior 
to our own. Several chances to take both Richmond and Yorktown 
were lost. One might say, had he tried any particular one, it might 
have been a defeat. Not so, had he tried them all. 

Thus the time passed away, and at the end of his active career 
of inertia, he could chiefly point to defences, not attacks — to plans, 
not accomplishments. Though not a wonderful man, he might have 
with his opportunities made a lasting fame. Many a soldier loves 
him for his courage and his skill ; but more are endeared to him for 
saving them from fighting. We had a country officer of militia, to 

whom a tender parent said, — " Colonel P , so long as you are in 

office, I can trust my son in the ranks, for I know you will never lead 
him into danger." 

How reasonable was it to expect, as did Lincoln, that at least the 
Northern army, whose purpose was attack, should do as much as the 
Southern, whose purpose was defence. And yet he was called Na- 
poleonic. "Why, beyond their physique, no two men were ever more 
dissimilar. In that time, and with that force, Napoleon would have 
scoured the whole South. What ! tie Napoleon Bonaparte two 
years to one battle-ground'? He never stayed, he never delayed, he 
had not his armies tied to his back but in his two hands, and he hurl- 
ed them now one, now the other, now both with thunder's energy and 
lightning's speed, never failing till he met what an orator calls more 
the unyielding law of nature than human will. Did he never risk 1 
All his great battles turned upon it. Where then was his excuse 1 
in that he knew that his own presence and his soldiers' love for him 
made him a match for unequal numbers. 



I find in Abraham Lincoln's letter, after the battle of Antietam, a 
more perfect connaisance and comprehension of McClellan's position 
and duty, than I find in all McClellan's action and correspondence, 
and beyond the detail of war, I think him the better stuff for a gen- 
eral. We form an ideal of every man we like. I have mine of Abra- 
ham Lincoln. We have, in Canada, a member of Parliament, plain 
John Pope, and to my mind he and Lincoln are twins in every re- 
spect but culture. They stand six feet, they have a like cast of feat- 
ure, and are both plain ; both have built their rail fences, both made 
their logical arguments, both stumble in grammar, but neither in 
common sense ; the brains of both are brim-full of it. Raw-boned 
and lean by nature, they make themselves still more so by mental 
labor. No enterprise makes them cower, but work the more. Upon 
no new subject are they destitute of new ideas. Their nature is 
common-sense, their care human rights, they are both extremely ge- 
nial and gestive, but fun is put in abeyance when fact is at issue- 
humor is essential to the long life of a public man, and we need cite 
no better instance than Palmerston. Pope will probably never be 
Governor or prime minister of Canada ; but in either place people 
would not say he is incapable. As is said of one, so it can be said of 
the other, you would never call him a gentleman, still less would you 
say he was not one. Laboulaye says, "Lincoln is a Ctcsar; though 
in like place he never would have had the disposition to do Csesar's 
work, for the motive was not humane enough, he has overcome as 
great obstacles ; he has not stood as do McClellan and Pendleton in 
the new lithograph, erect over the prostrate form of Liberty, (saying, 
rise beloved mother, without helping her), but in the spirit of Gaspa- 
rin's grand peuple qui relcve, he stoops and aids her." 

He perceived when the South would not yield to his election, 
though on the non-extension ticket, that the war was to be pro-sla- 
very on the part of the South, and LTnion or anti slavery, or both, on 
the part of the North. Wisely he contends for both, and so in a 
measure displeases the extreme peace men on the one side, and abo- 
litionists on the other. Was not pro-slavery the shibboleth of the 
South 1 Has any anti-slavery state seceded ? Though for a time 
he needed delicate policy toward border states men, bankers and 
millionaires, and men of mental sway, won over from a pro-sla- 
very to a Union party who needed to see the further necessity before 
they could become anti-slavery ; yet he decided that the anti-sla- 
very sentiment must in a great measure attend and direct his meas- 



16 

ures, for the opposite Lad endangered the Union ; because so many 
slaves, so many enemies ; because the whim of leaving the negro 
out of the fight, would cost many a man his life ; because martial law 
v/hich ignores property in necessity, must especially ignore such 
doubtful property in its present necessity. If Abraham Lincoln with 
a mountain of facts, calm confidence in his cause and his success, and 
at his leisure prepares a presidential message, and Jefferson Davis, 
red hot with anger, or full with grief, writes in a night his own, — it 
may be that the latter will be moulded in its sentences, and 
will create more satisfaction with its unity, and more sympathy 
with its feeling ; but the other alone is reliable, sound and thought- 
ful. The one a speech for a day, the other a state paper for time. 
I have never been one of those who could not find most marked abil- 
ity in his messages. As he never' laid claims to polish, the reader 
should not be offended at its absence. Every man has his faults, and 
every great man who aspires to the presidential office, may make his 
whole career abortive by avarice, unlawful ambition, corruption, 
rashness. Now I state that while the majority of great men are 
amenable because of some one of these faults, Lincoln has neither. — 
Furthermore, you know what he intends to do, and that he has not 
finished his work. He was made President for this war specially, and 
it is for him to finish it. If Louis Napoleon were told that his cab- 
inet ruled him, out of vanity he would oust them to show the contra- 
ry ; but Lincoln does not oust Seward or Blair. He said to himself, 
if I have magisterial ability, time will show it. We will not dwell 
on the suspension of Habeas Corpus ; as much hue and cry almost made 
about it as if it was habeas corpus christi. The weapon's his to use 
and we do him implore, in coming time to use it more. 

He acts entirely in the matter within the spirit of the CoLSlitu- 
tion. I see in the spirit of his emancipation proclamation, employ- 
ment of negroes — his anmesty proclamation and his intercourse with 
Hayti and Liberia, that which will stamp his conduct noble and be- 
nevolent abroad. As Moses made the bitter waters of Marah sweet 
to the Israelites by casting in a tree, so will your leader in time sweet- 
en and calm the tempestuous sea of rebellion by casting therein the 
whole tree of liberty. DeTocqueville says >"aat Jackson was both 
Federalist and Eepublican, but he was the idol of that party which 
afterwards merged in the democratic. Now I hear Democrats say 
almost in one breath, Give us a Jackson to wind up the war, and 
turn out Lincoln, for he tramples on our rights and suspends habeas 



/9/ 

17 

corpus. Oh, consistency were a jewel. His real name was not 
Hickory, but Habeas Corpus Jackson ; but Clay said of Jackson, 
" If lie had the qualities of a statesman, it escaped my notice." And 
W3 all know that Jackson's removal and making of officials at will' 
gave rise to tlie saying, " To the victors belong the spoils." There 
are among the democratic party many Irishmen and many Jews ; 
are they there from principle, or personal favor, or motive ? if the 
former, perhaps well, though as the differences between the South- 
ern and Northern arc temporal, personal interest rather than principle 
must decide these foreigners in a great measure. Now the Jew is 
avoided in the South, and when he seeks to locate himself, unless he 
buys his ground surreptitiously, the Southerners combine and prevent 
him. I have seen this often proved. In south-western Georgia I 
seldom saw an Irishman. The State-Hights party had an aversion 
toward a class who could swell the Northern vote so easily. The 
Richmond Examiner says: "The mass of foreign immigrants are 
sensual, grovelling, low-minded agrarians, distinguished by restless, 
wandering habits, and by a peculiar conformation of the skull and 
face. Animal and sensual nature largely predominates with them 
over the moral and intellectual. It is they who commit crimes, fill 
prisons, and adorn the gallows. They ran away from liberty. Had 
they feudal lords or masters to furnish them homes and subsistence, 
not one of them would quit. In a few years the blasphemous refor- 
mers will curse heaven that it did not bless the North with slavery, 
the only antidote to a ci'owded, motley, foreign and native popula- 
tion." I barely escaped a mobbing for telling a Southerner that he 
reminded me of an Irish friend. He came to the car window where 
I sat, and pointed me out to his companions, saying, "There is the ras- 
cal who said I looked like an Irishman." Are the Irish afraid that 
the influx of blacks North will affect their labor ; let them rather 
reflect that opening the South will give themselves a larger field. 
So far from taunting them with their* political misfortune and folly, I 
will say that nothing is more galling to every manly emotion I can lay 
claim to, than the knowledge that ignorant men, whose only offense is 
that they lack five of the ten talents granted their fellows, are made 
subjects of error by ni^n whom nature has well endowed. For the 
foregoing reasons, we say in Canada, the Democrats are wrong, and 
Lincoln is our choice. I believe and trust his work will be for hu- 
manity. " Only the actions of the just smell sweet in death and 
blossom in the dust." » 



18 

As for tlie Chicago Platform, I can only characterize it as cow- 
ardly, dishonorable and inconsistent, like the distorted figure in Hor- 
ace's Ars Poctica ; and if we judge from democratic speeches, Val- 
landigham's, Thayer's, Winthrop's and Rcverdy Johnson's, one is for 
peace and talks for Pendleton, and another for war, and talks for 
McClellan. Can war so soften his gauntlet as to be tender in the hand 
of peace? There is a peace whldi is life, there is another which is 
death. As for that Democrat who is not only for Pendleton, for sla- 
very, but secretly for secession, I can only compare him to a ser- 
pent, confined in the sodden timbers of a ruined plalform, that, hav- 
ing two ways of exit, takes the smaller as more suitable for a serpent, 
and therein confined, hisses, writhes and ejects its venom, till the 
chill of November takes his existence. How diiferent was the lan- 
guage of that platform which shewed l^y its silence on the slavery 
question, that it did not fejl as it should do concerning it, from Ever- 
ett's, when he says : — " There is much reasan for the opinion, that 
by the simple act of levying war against the United States, the rela- 
tion of slavery was terminated." The one is cowardly one way, the 
other bold in another. Oh, how fortunate are those men who seo 
that this is the most momentous month in tlieir political lives, and 
make an eternal reputation by stepping out on the rock platform that 
cannot be swept away. How different from that man who hath no 
principle but party, who mounts his party steed, and with spurs deep, 
and flowing rein, shouts. Away, away ! a race, a contest, though it 
be down the hill cf abuse, and over the precipice of destruction. 

I feel that I must have the privilege of going South when I choose ; 
I want again to see the tall, slight, long-leafed pine, holding its tassels 
as some tall Cherokee stood at its base holding his sc.ilps a century 
since; the scrubby black-jack oak with its rough, hard trunk like the 
war club of Attilla ; the mistletoe that decks one white oak with its 
pearls like some young bride, and the long grey moss that hangs 
another with a thousand beards ; the spreading hickory, and the sil- 
ver-leafed chestnut dropping their oflFeriugs in the autumn leaves ; the 
persimmon, with one hand feeding its honied plums to the grinning 
possum, and with the other to the roving swine ; the cedar-vine mus- 
codine tempting the fishes with its sapphire clusters ; the wild grape 
dropping its tendrils from the hawlhorno like hanging-birds' nests, 
and clasping the corn-stalk, whispering with the voice of growth, — 
" Fill the husbandman's palm with the golden kernels, and I will 
paint it with the ruby wine," The china carpeting the vermilliou soil 



19 

with taper leaves, and the locust spreading for a border its pods of 
bronze with their stores of wild honey. The French mulberry clus- 
tering its carmine plumes in the hedges, and the passion flower, fig 
and pomegranite c filing to the gardens freighted with the aromatic 
odors of tuberose, jessamine and myriad roses, and I am willing that 
the Southerner should rest his foot on the soft and jelly allu"rial or 
golden loam of Canada ; should enjoy our stately forest, majestic 
mountain, pure-eyed lakes, and fairy villes, where the clear blue air 
and cloudless sky, make the winter's frost a splendid joke ; and win- 
ter, with the white hand of a fairy, weaves its feathered snow into a 
warm mantle for our generous earth. I want also to see the little 
darkies who made so many simple presents to Massa Ned, and my 
(ousin's slaves, whom I pretended to oversee while I wrote an anti- 
slavery lecture ; but I want to see them free, as I know from their 
own statements to me they wish to be, and Lincoln's election is a step 
toward it. 

Then no tmv.s shiill lii" sown among 
The pure white cotton unstained by wrong; 
IJiit the picker shall sing his whole life long 
The song of the free, the heaven-born song. 

There are years when causes alone are sown, 
Tliere are otiiers, when only results are known ; 
But ill this shall the two be eternally shown. 
And the world shall alternate, rejoice and moan. 

It shall moan as the slave when returned to the free. 

Doth moan that he e'er could shackled be ; 

Hut the uioan and the groan shall pass away, 

And the world shall sing its roundelay 

As they sang in iSlaryland the oth' 

They groaned for a moment, they joy for aye. 

As you vote with a view to your future good, bear in mind what 
would have been the vote of those soldiers who have fallen for their 
country, whose spirits oft in the dead of night march a mighty army 
oa parade through the clear field of your vision, each in turn identi- 
fied and cherished. Though no marble pillars be erected to their mem- 
cry, history shall raise to your heroes of the North monuments as 
high and bright as the pillars of the Aurora Borealis of the North. 
As I go forth at night, I see the evening star, precursor of the galaxy 
that is soon to stud the sky, and I am minded of that star of the 
navy, Farragut, precursor of great victories ; soon the moon appears. 



20 

and with calm and certain march, performs, like Sherman, his mag- 
nificent and unswerving round. But what' fills us with unusual ad- 
miration and surprise, dazzling with sudden brilliancy ; 'tis a meteor 
in its splendor, 'tis a comet in its speed ; 'tis too magnificent to last 
we say, and watch it through the night ; yet another night it comes- 
and yet another, till we subside the victims of inexpressible wonder- 
ment. 'Tis not that meteoric orator of England, Sheridan, but Sher- 
idan, the meteoric warrior of America. And then comes the sun of 
day that in its mighty splendor gives the universe its warmth and 
light, as your Ulysses gives this war the light of skill, and warmth 
of hope and courage ; while non-commissioned heroes throng the 
milky-way, and shooting stars from Lyon until Mulligan flash on 
memory. 



